Now I’ve seen the above postings, I can understand MGibson’s take on this a little better.
As McVeigh hasn’t been tried, and therefore judged, for the murders of everyone that day who didn’t work for the feds, how can the familes be invited to watch anyway? He’s being executed for the death of 8 federal agents.
His associate will be facing trial in Oklahoma later – does this mean the families will come again to see him snuff it in several years time?
BTW – I wouldn’t prevent the families of the 160 victims from watching what is essentially a medical procedure akin to euthanasia. Is it true vengeance, though, that he dies in such a sanitised, relatively painless way? Hmm?
Oh, and one more thing. Who is in charge of the chemicals during the procedure? Can’t be someone, surely, who learned all during their medical training that old stuff about the importance of preserving life, now could they?
While it may be legal for the victims’ kin to watch executions, I am nevertheless uncomfortable about it.
The government’s very legitimacy in meting out punishment derives from the individual’s waived right to retribution, no? While it may be a perfectly normal human instinct to desire revenge, as members living in a civilized state we have waived this right.
Many have argued that watching the execution gives the bereaved a touch of vengeance. Why are they entitled to retain their right to retribution, however minimal, when others are not? Are there definite criteria with which to determine when individuals can seek vengeance? Do these criteria not trivialize the crimes committed against individuals which are just under the vengeance bar, as it were?
I’ve never had a problem with the death penalty in general, nor with the victims’ families seeing justice meted out. Strangely, the only thing that feels vaguely creepy about this concept is the idea of showing it to the families by closed-circuit TV. If you’re going to watch your loved ones’ murderer die, I feel you ought to do it in person.
The idea of watching over the TV feels weird, a little like ditching an S.O. over the telephone, pronouncing sentence on a defendant by radio, or firing an employee by letter. There are some things that you shouldn’t do without looking the other person in the eye, and I personally feel that witnessing an execution is one of them.
I recognize that this is a debate about victims’ families viewing executions, not about the death penalty itself. My input will therfore give no indication of my view of the death penalty itself.
It is an entirey expected experience to have one’s loved ones die. Sadly, it is also expected, to a lesser extend and varying from cutlure to culture, to have one’s loved ones die violently and unjustly. But either way, people have coping mechanisms to deal with that. (One recent example of this coping abiltiy that touched me deeply was by the families of the victims of a serial killer in Spokane Washington, who preyed on female teenage runaways. The family of one of the young women put up a shrine in their home, with a plaque calling her “Our wild flower.” She was a difficult girl who paid a price far beyond her faults for it, and they found a way of loving her for who she was.)
However, what seems to be a strange experience indeed is to go to a cinder-block room and sit in plastic patio chairs and wait for a curtain to be drawn and a man to be killed. How can you cope with that? Sitting in chars and watching stuff is as common to us as hanging on branches and picking leaves is to koalas. We are deeply, deeply conditioned into a culture of mass amusement and entertainment, and I doubt that an execution, for all its lauded claims to “effecting closure” would pyschologically register on a level that breaks out of that conditioning, no matter how profound their anger.
No! I am not saying “watching your child die = watching a good episode of ER.” I’m saying that grief shold be private, and revenge should be societal. The night the child-murderer Albert Fish was electrocuted, yellow-press reporters woke the parents of his victim up out of bed to get a quote. All they got was the father’s voice from the bedroom saying “close the door and come back to bed Ma.” Amen to that.
They aren’t “entitled” to any right of retribution. They aren’t actually putting a needle in anyone’s arm and pushing the syringe. Executions are commonly attended by various witnesses, the family of the person being executed, the media, and in some states the family of the victims. While I don’t believe there’s any right to view an execution I have no objection to allowing people to watch.
Watching it on television would probably make it appear somewhat less real to most people. I would imagine if it were televised you’d see McVeigh’s eyes and hear his statement before they put the hood on him. Uh, if they even give a hood for lethal injection.
The problem with violence/death on television is that we rarely see the consequences. Crying family members on both sides as well as the various witnesses who might break out into tears. I also think most people don’t consider the affects the death penalty might have on those who actually carry out the sentence. Even if someone deserves death I’ll never actually view the death penalty as a positive. But then I don’t view prison as a positive either.
Wow. What a fascinating outlook. With this post I feel we are moving into a very theoretical area…by which I mean that this argument is a bit too…what?..intuitive…deep…to actually convince an opposing party that letting the families watch the execution does not actually provide the closure it is intended to. But it is a really cool argument nonetheless. And actually sums up very well the “this is weird” feeling that I experienced when I first heard the families were to view the execution. THat’s all. I just wanted to gush. Nice one.
I guess part of what bothers me about the situation is that watching the murderer put to death is kind of like…well, I wanted to say casual sex, but that varies so much from person to person that it might not work. But what I mean to say is that it seems loike the kind of thing where the anticipation of watching him die would be far more satisfying than actually watching him die. And it ties to the above comment by Slithy. You anticipate his death, you get worked up for finally seeing this bastard die for the awful things he did to your loved one, and then you go and sit in the seat, like you’re just watching a play, they stick a needle in his arm, and he slowly, silently, just dies. No blood, no death throes, no agony. No spectacle. Not that I think a spectacle would necessarily make it more satisfying, but it seems to me that a spectacle is what these people really want. And afterwards, spectacle or no spectacle, there would be no real release of their grief, and they would just be left feeling even emptier now that even revenge is no longer an option. I just don’t think it helps.